Same Beer... Now in a Can. Improvement?

Against ALL common sense I've found that Miller High Life tastes way better in their clear glass bottles than in cans.

 

I think miller high life is much better in cans than the bottles. Another plus to canned beer is it transports at much lower risk in a checked bag when flying. Don't have to protect with bubble wrap.

 

I would say it's better out of the bottle regardless of age. I haven't had the 12ozers yet but the pounders have an odd off-taste (to me). Other beers (Summit Saga) I prefer from the can.

 

When I drink out of the can it taste metallic.
When I drink out of the bottle it taste like glass.

 

Is it? Almost all beers I've tried from a can are not as good as they were in draught or even from a glass bottle. For example, I've had Stella Artois from a glass bottle and draught, and they were pretty good, but when I tried the canned version, it was nowhere near as good. Is it just my imagination, or are canned beers actually worse?

 

Well.. I probably wouldn't use Stella as your benchmark. It would be awful if you drank if off Megan Fox's ass.

 

Results my vary, but I tend to favor beer from cans as they are impervious to light oxidation and therefore tend to stay a little fresher than bottles. Check canning dates before you buy.

 

No?

 

I've actually stopped drinking Stella Artois since then (It was just the first example I could think of), and generally corporate beers, and more recently discovered the magic of craft beer.

So cans are technically superior because they prevent less air from coming into contact with the beer?

 

Can protects the beer from light as well.

But don't drink directly from the can (or bottle) if you can avoid it. Doing so cuts into the flavors and reduces them.

 

Huh, I didn't know that. Though I did drink the Stella Artois from a glass. I guess the problem with it is that it wasn't as good as I remembered it when I tried the can.

 

I'll choose cans every time versus the same age in a bottle.

 

i recently had both a bottle and can version of Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin on the same night and noticed no discernible difference between the two
i have found that the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the bright green cans tastes fresher and more citrusy than the bottle version but i cannot vouch for the dates between the two ...could have simply been a freshness issue

 

The flavors we pick up from food and drink result from a combination of what goes on with our sense of taste and with our sense of smell, with the sense of smell actually being more important than the sense of taste. Also the sense of smell has two components, the aromas that come in through the nose and the aromas released from the contents of the mouth. These two components show some differences from each other and produce different effects on the flavors we experience. So pouring a glass of beer with a nice head on it helps release some of the aromatics for the nose to pick up as it goes close or into the glass when taking a sip. Often we can get a good sense of what flavors a beer will have simply from sniffing the aromas released in the glass (this is why snifters serve a useful purpose and are not a snobbish thing the way some people think they are).

 

I think it is entirely dependent upon the quality of the canning or bottling operation. Cans should have an edge on avoiding spoilage, if they were properly purged, as they block all light. I'm no expert but indications I've seen are that the level of effort that goes into obtaining very low levels of dissolved oxygen is quite variable among breweries and the systems that they use.

So a good bottling line beats a bad canning line and vice versa. For very time sensitive beers, like IPAs, I think a good canning line beats a good bottling line. For high ABV Belgians, stouts, barleywines and porters, I doubt that there is any difference, and there might be an edge to bottles.

 

You know the wrap is applied before the can is filled right? I'm not for or against shrink wrapped cans, but some look like ass and some look decent.

 

My friends that work in beer retail say that on the whole, can sales have been up the last two years and keep going. I think less people are concerned about bpa linings in than youd think, hasnt stopped all those heady chasers pounding those tallboys. Its just that older baby boomer generation that still has the biggest can bias.

 

If given the choice, I will ALWAYS pick the can.

EXCEPT, when I need to replenish the homebrew bottle supply.

 

Yes. I have no problem with the look of the shrink-wrap or believe it to be QA/QC problem in of itself. The shrink wrap is only an indicator of low-volume canning operations, like mobile canning, which have a higher potential for QA/QC issues (packaged oxygen, oxygen ingress, poor seals, infections, etc.)